Big Idea
Bullying
Essential question
How does bullying effect education?
Challenge
Decrease bullying in schools and community
Guiding Questions
Is bullying increasing or decreasing?
What is being done about bullying in school?
Are more students bullied face to face or online?
Is there a difference between bullying and cyber bullying?
Guiding Activities
1. Talk to bullying representative
2. Send an anonymous survey asking if they have been bullied
3. Use the internet to research bullying
4. Have a deep discussion on the consequences of not taking action and being a bystander.
Guiding Resources
1. Survey
2. Online note-taking
3. School Bullying Specialist interview
Solution/Action

Publishing
iMovie with pictures of bullying and voiceovers. We will add out interview into the iMovie.
Solution/Action:

There is tons of bullying going on in school. In 2010 over half the students reported witnessing a bullying crime take place in school. There were 2.6 million different kids being bullied and 2.1 kids taking the role of the bully in 2010. This means that bullying is a huge, widespread problem and is not something that just happens to a few people. Many of these people who are bullied each year eventually become bullies themselves because years of being tormented made them want revenge. Retaliation to bullying is a major reasons for most school shootings. Teenage suicide rates has grown almost 50% over the last 30 years.

Bullying has serious and lasting effects. While these effects may also be caused by other factors, research has found bullying has significant effects for those who are bullied, those who bully others, and those who witness bullying. These effects are especially evident in school. People who are bullied have higher risk of depression and anxiety which includes loss of interest in activitiesare more likely to miss, skip, or drop out of school, and have decreased GPA, standardized test scores, and school participation. The bullies aremore likely to get into fights, vandalize property, and drop out of school. Bystanders have increased mental health problems, including depression and anxiety, and are more likely to miss or skip school.

After taking a survey we found out that a majority of kids (54%) admitted to being bullied before in school. Also another 17% said that they have been bystanders to an act of bullying before. This means that 71% of people have been involved one way or another in an an act of bullying and this is an overwhelming majority of students. Another survey we did asked if they believed more bullying was happening face to face in school or through the Internet (cyber bullying). Here an overwhelming majority of 61% said that more bullying happened online. Even though it is happening away from school does not mean it doesn’t effect school which is why the newest bullying laws make it so acts of bullying outside of school can be punished through the school. We also had one last survey that asked which type of bullying they believe is worse face to face or Internet. 57% of people said that Internet bullying is more harmful which is probably due to the fact that people can hide behind a computer screen and say things that they would not say to someone face to face.


Now the real question comes into play: how do we prevent bullying? There is no right answer. You can only try and prevent it. Some ways you can do this is by keeping teachers more aware of the signs of bullying. Most kids that are bullied won’t admit there is something wrong. Teachers should be more aware of things like this. Also, you could have cameras installed. The only problem is that this will only show you the physical bullying. Plus, so kids “friendly bully” their friends. This brings us to another problem. When is it not funny? When does it stop being a joke? If different between everyone, so you have to know what is a joke between friends and what is not. One things teachers can’t fully control is cyber bullying since it is done over the Internet and phones, and again, most student won’t admit it. Teachers just have to watch out for the signs. The people that do speak up about being bullied hopefully have someone to talk to, like an anti-bullying specialist if they have one in their school.

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Guiding Resources:


http://www.2facts.com/icof_story.aspx?PIN=i1000220&term=bullying
"Bullying." Issues & Controversies On File: n. pag. Issues & Controversies. Facts On File News Services, 29 June 2009. Web. 21 Sept. 2011. <http://www.2facts.com/article/i1000220>.




Notes:
Friday September 16th: We chose our topic (bullying) and our group name (ABC)
Monday September 19th: Our group worked on the guiding questions, guiding activities, and guiding resources. We also sent out our first survey and got a good result.
Tuesday September 20th: We scheduled an interview date with Christine Rossig and came up with interview questions. We also sent out our second survey.
Wednesday September 21st: Steven and Jake went to our interview with Mrs. Rossig, and they recorded it. We are going to put this into our final presentation.
Thursday September 22nd: We worked on our final project, cutting down our interview and adding information before it.
Friday September 23rd: Continued working on our final project
Monday September 26th: Steven worked on the iMovie at home. We continued to edit the project.


  • Over half, about 56 percent, of all students have witnesses a bullying crime take place while at school.
  • A reported 15 percent of all students who don't show up for school report it to being out of fear of being bullied while at school.
  • There are about 71 percent of students that report bullying as an on-going problem